The family and the church are given that primary command to disciple. That would be the natural place for discipleship to happen. I mean, the families where new people are brought into the world, and the church is where these people are then taught what God commands them as his image-bearers, and where people are often remade as they hear the gospel and become new creatures in Christ. So it makes sense that the family and the church would have the main emphasis, the main thrust of discipleship put on them. The modern church largely falls into one of two ditches in my experience.

Either discipleship is completely neglected, as if it's optional or even non-existent, or it's turned into just an industry or a program to follow, where you just check off these boxes and, you know, I've read this and I've done this and we'll move on from here. Whereas the scripture presents a much more natural, organic approach to discipleship day in, day out. As you rise up, when you lie down, parents are to instruct their children on what it means to follow the Lord. And in the church, you have the regular meeting of the church, the preaching of the word, the administration of the ordinances, the means of grace. All of these things come together organically to create disciples, to make people better followers of Jesus.

It's not about a program, it's about a whole-of-life approach where you have the family on one hand and then the gathering of a group of families in most cases coming together to say, hey, let's spur one another on to love and good works, love God, obey Him, and love other people and serve them. It's not just this approach of checking off boxes. It's not a factory. You